Breaking Waves: Ocean News

The Canadian government has committed C$25m to try to rescue the caribou in the province – but there is no agreement on how best to save the keystone species The caribou of Quebec are at breaking point. The province, home to 15% of Canada’s population of woodland caribou, has seen numbers crash to about half of what they were a decade ago. For years, local First Nations people, researchers and environmental groups have criticised the provincial government’s lack of action on protecting caribou, an animal considered a keystone species by Indigenous peoples. A recently announced agreement between the federal and Quebec governments has raised hopes that the province will finally be compelled to release a protection strategy. The federal government has committed C$25m (£13m) to the province for caribou over five years, with an additional C$15m for the First Nations communities on whose land the herds live. Continue reading...

Exclusive: The tax-funded brainchild of Dominic Cummings hopes to find ways to speed up wild species’ evolution Vaccines for ash trees, skin treatments for newts and gene-edited swallowtail butterflies are among 14 tax-funded projects from the UK’s “invention agency” aiming to accelerate nature’s ability to adapt to the climate crisis. The £54m accelerated adaptation programme from the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) – a public body that funds high-risk, high-reward tech projects – aims to investigate applications of biotechnology that can speed up wild species’ evolution and help them to adapt to new threats such as global warming and disease. Continue reading...

Unions, thinktanks and others say overhaul could provide investment Britain needs Unions, thinktanks, environmental groups and charities have come together to call on ministers to boost the financial firepower of the national wealth fund to empower it to invest more in Britain and rebalance the country’s economy. Lower energy bills, the revitalisation of the UK’s industrial heartlands and the provision of more high-quality jobs could all be unlocked by scaling up the NWF, according to a statement from organisations including the TUC, Greenpeace, WWF and the New Economics Foundation. Turbocharging the retrofitting of homes and buildings. Giving the public a bigger stake in critical infrastructure through taking part-ownership stakes in key projects. Launching a targeted investment programme to bring new green industries to communities hit hardest by deindustrialisation. Supporting a network of regional banks to funnel money into the small businesses that hold up local economies. Continue reading...

People are increasingly crossing paths with the wild animals as homes ring the outskirts of forests, sparking a new era of coexistence Every year, as summer draws to a close and fall begins, California’s bears get hungry. Black bears have long roamed the state, hunting for acorns, ants and pine nuts by the bucketload to pack on calories before hibernation. But increasingly, for every berry and root, there’s an even greater temptation: our trash and the detritus of human existence. Continue reading...